“Asha'ab yureed isqat
annidham." This phrase is ringing in the ears of tyrants
and despots around the Arab world and means quite simply that
"the people want to bring down the
regime." It is the enduring chant of the Arab Spring, so
it's hardly surprising that these are probably the first words children
learn in their cradles as they are rocked to sleep to the beat of this
rousing street anthem.

When a group of 11-year-old Syrian boys
made their way home from school one day and started larking around, as
boys of that age do, it was almost inevitable that among the graffiti
they scratched on a partially-collapsed wall would be these iconic
words. By revolutionary standards it was an unremarkable act, hardly
worthy of mention because the same graffiti can be found on walls in
most Arab countries. However, just as hard-up Tunisian fruit seller
Mohammed Bou Azizi is credited with igniting the Arab Spring with his
self-immolation, this long forgotten, single act of childish vandalism
lit the touch paper of the Syrian Revolution.

It was a seminal
moment in time that the Arab world’s Leftists would rather you forget;
in their frenzied bid to rewrite the history of the Arab Spring they
want you to believe that crazed Islamists are hijacking the
peoples’ revolution. The Left in Syria, you see, isn't as cuddly as the
splintered socialist groups in Britain. These are hard-line
fundamentalist, religion-hating secularists who have no room, not even a
square inch, for religion in their world; not for themselves and not for
anyone else.

While the people in Tunisia and Egypt fought for
freedom from tyranny they also wanted the freedom to re-engage with
their faith. Hence, to the shock and horror of the Arab Left, the people
voted for trusted groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. It was something
that the Left had never considered; they dismissed the Muslim vote as a
figment of the imagination; never once did they ever imagine that Muslim
groups would form political parties or even want to engage in democracy.
And in Libya, although some of the more fundamentalist Islamic groups
failed to secure the popular vote, other Islamic flavoured parties were
swept in to power.

So Syria, you see, is probably the Arab
Left’s last chance at having a revolution free from religion. This is
most likely the reason for their opposition to the revolution from the
very outset because they knew for sure that it would carry a strong
religious flavour. Well, sorry to disappoint them. I crossed the length
and breadth of Syria shortly before the revolution and saw most
communities, Christian and Muslim alike, holding tight to their faith.
Whatever shape their revolution will take, the future will be dominated
by believers.

But let me return to the 18 boys at the beginning
of this story because it is vitally important that we all remember
exactly how the revolution in Syria began. It did not begin with CIA
interference, nor an influx of foreign fighters, Al-Qaida, rebranded
weapons from the West, NATO or a global call across the Muslim world for
jihad.This was a reluctant revolution, a revolution forced on the people
by the acts of an evil, malevolent regime.

In fact, though,
while the 18 boys may have loaded the revolutionary gun way back in
February 2011, the trigger was pulled by a man called Atif Najeeb, a
cousin of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Within two hours of the
schoolboy prank, Atif instigated raids on every single one of the boys’
homes: armed police, the military and the ubiquitous security officials
stormed every home at precisely the same time, demanding that the
children be handed over. Amid the drama there was hand-wringing, cries
from mothers, pleas from fathers to take the place of their sons and
general confusion and chaos.

Distraught as news swept Dar’a, in
the south-west of Syria less than six miles from the Jordanian border,
the parents and their relatives gathered outside his office, but Atif
Najeeb along with Faisal Kalthoum the governor of Dar’a, refused to meet
any one of them.

For four days the families waited but not a
single scrap of news came out about the fate of their sons. Eventually,
a delegation made up of family members, local imams, the local
headteacher and other dignitaries assembled and once again demanded to
see Najeeb or the governor. After three hours they were herded into a
room to meet the governor who remained seated while deliberately keeping
the delegation on their feet. Culturally, this is a huge insult in the
Arab world. At this point no one had even an inkling of what the boys
had done to deserve their fate. The parents' pleas to have their
children returned were ignored and the governor advised them to forget
about them.

He allegedly said: “My advice to you is that you
forget you ever had these children. Go back home and sleep with your
wives and bring other children into the world and if you can not do
that, then bring your wives to us and we will do the job for you.”

By this time families in towns and villages across the region were
shocked and outraged by what had happened and began to demonstrate and
rally to show their support for the boys, their families and the town of
Dar'a. They included local people from Dayr Al-Zawr, Idlib and
Homs. While some did suggest that it was time for a revolution, the
families kept to only two demands: the return of their children and the
sacking of the governor for his crude and inflammatory remarks.

As the pressure mounted on Kalthoum, a helicopter full of military thugs
was flown in to Dar’a to quell the unrest and during clashes with local
citizens several of the Dar'a's citizens were killed. They went to their
graves not knowing what the children had done to incur the wrath of the
governor.

Eighteen days later, when it was clear that the
parents and families would not be appeased until their children were
returned, the boys were released. Their condition was pitiful and
shocking; all were traumatised beyond recognition. All had their finger
nails extracted. One had lost an eye while several had fractured skulls
and all had at least one broken limb. Today, those boys still bear the
whip marks and scars on their bodies which bear testimony to the brutal
nature of their detention and torture. Several of them still have
nightmares recalling the screeches and screams of their fellow inmates.

Far from calming the situation, the physical evidence that the boys
had been tortured enraged the people of Dar’a who made their own two
demands: the dismissal of the governor and justice delivered to those
who had done such wicked things to the boys including Atif Najeeb and
his torture squad.

The relatively low level demands carried on
for the next six months and those making them resisted calls for a
full-blown revolution and offers of outside intervention; there were
many in the Arab world who wanted to take up arms in support of their
brothers and sisters in Dar’a and the dozens of Syrian cities and towns
now in full revolutionary mode. Moreover, while insisting that their
reasonable demands be met, some of the families pleaded for calm and
even argued that Assad could not possibly have known or allowed this
atrocity to happen. Surely, a London-graduated doctor and
Ophthalmologist could not have consented to this barbarism, they argued.

By August the death toll across Syria had reached 1,000 and then
the foreign fighters arrived, not to help the people of Dar’a but to
destroy their spirit and morale. The fighters were mercenaries
from numerous neighbouring and distant countries including former Soviet
satellite states who, in the pay of the Assad regime, embarked on a
killing and raping spree.

The plan was to subdue the spreading
uprising and instill fear in the lives of the Syrian people, those who
dared protest and those who were considering joining the growing crowds
on the streets. Instead, the gates of Hell were opened and talks of
compromise and low level demands gave way to screams of “Ashaab yureed
isqat annidham”.

As news of the atrocities in Dar'a and other
Syrian cities reached Damascus some senior officers in the military
could no longer stomach what was being done in their name. They defected
from the regime and formed what is now known as the Free Syrian Army.
It’s not an army of outsiders; it was founded by Syrian officers and
grew in popularity and prominence with the media because of its name.

Speculation is rife about the emergence of Al-Qaida, foreign
jihadists, support from Arab countries, subversive tactics by Arab
countries, infiltration by the CIA and Mossad, just about everyone, in
fact, bar the Free Wales Army. Some of the speculation is true, some is
not, but don’t allow anyone to rewrite the history of the start of the
Syrian Revolution.

One day peace will come to Syria and when it
does the Graffiti Boys should be remembered and their names should go up
on another wall in Dar’a – a wall where their names can be carved with
pride.

Some of them may not survive the war but some will
finally enjoy the taste of freedom. Today I salute them and remember
each one by name and urge you to remember them too, so that when Syria’s
history is written in full they will not be forgotten:

1) Mu'awiya Faisal Sayasneh 2)

Yousuf Adnan Sweidan

3) Samer Ali Sayasneh

4) Ahmed Jihad Aba Zayd

5) Issa Hassan Abul Qayyas

6) Ala Mansour Irsheidat Aba Zayd

7) Mustafa Anwar Aba Zayd

8) Nidhal Anwar Aba Zayd

9) Akram Anwar Aba Zayd

10) Nayef Muwaffaq Aba Zayd

11) Basheer Farooq Aba Zayd

12) Ahmed Thani Irshiedat Aba Zayd

13) Ahmed Shukri Al-Akram

14) Abdul Rahman Nayef Al-Reshedat Aba Zayd

15) Muhammed Ayman Munwer Al-Karrad

16) Ahmed Nayef Al-Resheidat Aba Zayd

17) Nabeel Imad Al-Resheidat Aba Zayd

18) Mohammed Ameen Yasin Al-Resheidat Aba Zayd .

Opinions
expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors
and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.